Jumanji: The Next Level (2019)
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Jumanji: The Next Level Movie Review
Jumanji: The Next Level is a 2019 fantasy adventure comedy film directed by Jake Kasdan and starring Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black and Karen Gillian. It’s an inferior sequel.
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“Did I die and turn into a small muscular boy scout?“
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‘Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle’ took everyone, including me, by surprise. It was such a terrific reboot of a very weak, dated 90s children’s flick that improved upon the original in every way possible. It spoofed video games perfectly and was just a whole lot of fun, ending up as one of the best blockbusters of that year actually.
As it almost made a billion dollars, of course they ended up making a sequel. And the result is The Next Level – a tired, very unoriginal flick that is passable, but far from good or satisfactory. The protagonists end up taking their grandpas with them in the game on another adventure, and the result is a solid, though surface-level exploration of aging and old people.
I did like that subplot and it made the film more mature, but it’s not explored particularly cleverly, so I wasn’t thrilled with it. But the performances from Danny DeVito and Danny Glover are expectedly strong, and I wanted to have seen more of them as the other stars playing them really failed at that, especially The Rock who is simply not skilled at doing voices, and here he butchered DeVito’s speech pattern entirely. He was terrible for sure.
However, Kevin Hart did channel his voice pretty well, and again I found him very good as he was in the first movie. The same goes for Jack Black who repeats the same shtick here, but it works once again. Karen Gillian herself is once again badass and even funny at times. But Awkwafina was unfortunately entirely wasted in this film, which really bothered me as she deserves so much more.
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Jumanji: The Next Level has some good action with the ostriches being memorable, but mostly the film resorted to cheap, uninspired imagery and set pieces with no inventiveness to them whatsoever. Some are entertaining and some of the humor is excellent, but a lot of it is also not all that great. It’s a mixed bag that benefits from the charm of the original being brought back again, but it has nothing new to offer to the table unfortunately.
Welcome to the Jungle brought the Jumanji franchise gloriously back to life as it ended up being one of the best blockbusters of its respected year, which is all the more reason why The Next Level is so damn disappointing. The old people angle is fine and sweet, though stereotypical. Some of the performances are great with Kevin Hart being the best part, but The Rock was terrible this time around as he has no skill whatsoever at doing voices. The movie is fun and funny at times, but mostly unoriginal, uninspired and simply inferior to its predecessor in every way.
